A science defined future. Are current events further affirmation of science being our future? I would say that it's a rather large part of our own history, and its role in shaping our world and how we interact with each other will eventually diminish as society evolves further into something else. Perhaps science will transcend and become something else entirely in the future as major breakthroughs are made, but this will certainly not be in my lifetime.
Science is a large part of history, but it will become less so as time passes. It was never meant to be the future in any objective sense anyway - being merely one way that humans have used to interact with and shape the world. Science's impact will diminish for a number of reasons, but the main one is that humans are evolving - via cultural, biological and social evolution - into something else.
We're already seeing this happen. Certain aspects of science, such as quantum theory, are almost entirely ignored by humans and have been for a long time. The more we evolve, I have to ponder as to whether science will start to become tainted with skewed results and political issues. Perhaps science will simply become the norm and not something we classify with words like STEM. To give some examples of this: I suspect that in a few hundred years there will be no such thing as education or training in the scientific method. Perhaps it will be so well integrated into every aspect of life, perception and mention of science will morph completely.
Science continues to be a huge part of society but the way we refer to science in the future is most likely to change. Science may amalgamate itself into cultural norm and therefore become the future but at the same time lose its reference. For now though, science is at the forefront of every decision made worldwide and will continue to be the core, especially in a time of pandemic.
